Walter Soldierer’s Blog

A funnel is often used to illustrate how many of your target audience will finally perform a desired action on the web site. For those who still believe that the mere existence of a web site is enough to get the “e” part of their marketing job done, a funnel is a handy tool to prove how wrong they are.

General marketing concepts can often be applied to web sites, too. One such example is the AIDA concept used in advertising. An ad needs to draw attention, then interest, then desire, and hopefully triggers some action. Web site marketers are constantly looking for methods and metrics to support each of the 4 steps.

Attention can easily be measured by page views. But isn’t there something before the “A”? If a web site cannot be accessed by people with disabilities, it can’t attract their attention at all. So should things like accessibility come before attention? (more…)

Another smart acquisition by Google, proving that miniblogs are considered an important social networking phenomenon by big influencial organisations, too. I was wondering which of the miniblogs would be bought first. Twitter lost. With its strong mobile integration and RSS capabilities, Jaiku obviously was a more interesting acquisition target for Google. Here is the announcement. Lets hope that Google keeps up Jaiku’s good work.

I was wondering why Nokia had not bought Jaiku already. The Jaiku founders are former Nokia employees, and Jaiku works great with mobile devices, with special client software for Nokia phones. Also, Nokia is building the OVI interactive portal as the next step in “connecting people”, with music and games. Jaiku’s social networking features would have nicely complemented this service. For more information about Nokia’s OVI site see my on-conference blog post.

Jaiku is great. I let it import CSS feeds from all my social networking sites. Webvet.jaiku.com is the easiest way to track me online

2nd day of a well organized IQPC conference on Web Site Globalization, Barcelona Sep 20, 2007

Laurent Ezekiel - Senior Client Partner
LBI GROUP

Dan O’Sullivan - Director
EMEA, TRANSLATIONS.COM

“Creating, Deploying and Managing a Multi-Lingual / Multi-Country User Generated Content Site”

Creating a successful community site is a big challenge:

(more…)

2nd day of a well organized IQPC conference on Web Site Globalization, Barcelona Sep 20, 2007

Niklas Schlappkohl - Senior Manager Online Globalization
STARWOOD RESORTS & HOTELS

“Using the Web to Develop Your Online Presence and to Protect Your Online Brand Equity”

Critical: Understanding cultural acceptance while protecting brand standards

Examples:

• Languages
• Salutations: Title / First Name / Last Name / Both / San (jp)
• Style, Colors, Layout
• Geosegmented functionality

(more…)

1st day of a well organized IQPC conference on Web Site Globalization, Barcelona Sep 20, 2007

Dr. Simon Lande - CEO
MAGUS

“A Guide to Defining, Implementing ang Managing Global Web Standards”

Simon Lande talked about Web Standards

• what they are and why they are important
• how to define them
• how to implement them
• how to manage them

(more…)

1st day of a well organized IQPC conference on Web Site Globalization, Barcelona Sep 20, 2007

Bruno Herrmann - Marketing Manager, Web Content
THE NIELSEN COMPANY
Chairperson’s Welcome Address:
“Web globalization is an important topic and there is room for improvement on many sites. Examples:”

• usability of flags to indicate languages or currencies (UK/US/Australia problem) - DON’T!
• AVIS.ch: No language except EN (in a multilingual country!)
• HILTI Honkong: Text on images not translated

(more…)